How Are You Supporting Change? 0
Curtis L. Odom
In one of my last posts on my previous blog site, Stuck In The Middle, I talked about the changing landscape for most organizations and in particular, the impact change is having on our field as HR/talent practitioners.
And so today, I am here to ask you, what have you done to support this change? I am talking beyond just supporting the business by talking about the change. I want specifics. I want to know how you’re helping to push our field forward and I want to know what you’re strategy is for moving people through the inevitable change and how you’re helping them cope.
This is not rocket science, but as we know it is not easy either. It requires that you start to think differently about your craft, about your place in the organization and about your ability to do something different. I am not looking for the game changing idea that you have, but I want to know if you’ve even started to have discussions about how this field will evolve and where it is headed. I want to hear about how those discussions have come together, and how as an organization you have started to lay out plans and look at options.
When Clayton Christenson talks about disruptive change, he talks about our propensity to think change will occur sooner than it truly can and in a much more disruptive fashion than it really will occur. Disruption can take years. I am not here to sound an urgent alarm, but we need to wake up because change s coming. If education can be disrupted, everything is fair game.
Which leads me to my second question. What are your plans for helping people cope with change? It’s happening somewhere this instant in your business, so what have you done to help? Is it a training in isolation? If so, it’s not enough. I love training, it is a great tool, but it is not a panacea for everything that ails your organization. Sending people through a course on how to handle change and then leaving them on their own just will not cut it.
I am not being an alarmist, but it is time you get ready for change. Especially if you want a say in what the change will look like in our field. If you do, it is time you start doing something about it.